


Cold Water Kisses

by Mintey



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Laundromats, Laundry, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2015-04-21
Packaged: 2018-03-22 17:47:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3737905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mintey/pseuds/Mintey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At three o'clock in the morning, any kind of strange men could walk into a laundromat to do laundry. Except, in this situation, Harry isn't sure if that strange man is his current bloodied self, or the young man sat in his boxers atop the washing machine.</p><p>(Or, the one where Eggsy and Harry meet in a laundromat instead of in jail.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Water Kisses

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own the characters, or really anything about the universe, et cetera. All mistakes are my own, and so forth. Enjoy!

It's sometime past midnight, and all Harry Hart wants to do is go home. The only problem is, "home" is currently an upscale hotel, and Harry doesn't think the staff would appreciate him showing up in his bloodied state. Harry finds himself cursing the fact that despite being bulletproof and flame resistant, the Kingsman technicians and tailors still hadn't figured out a way to be resistant to knives and broken glass. Of course, that  _would_ be the two things Harry's latest mission involved, which is how he finds himself in the middle of the town without a taxi in sight.

Wandering the city streets this time of night, especially in this part of the city, has Harry on edge. He sees the glow of lights in a window up ahead, and is instantly relieved to find it to be a laundromat. For once this evening, things seem to be going alright. 

The bell on the door rings as Harry opens it and the sole other occupant looks up with an almost fearful expression. The strangest part is, Harry thinks, is that once the boy registers his presence and the blood on his clothes, the boy actually appears relieved. Harry gives the boy a polite nod before heading over to one of the washing machines and beginning to strip. 

"Blood ain't going to come off in the washer, bruv."

The voice startles Harry. His fingers pause from undoing the buttons to his shirt as he turns his head to look at the boy. Harry glances down at the dark red patches staining his shirt, then back at the boy again. "Pardon?"

"It ain't going to come off," he repeats. The boy hops off of the machine he had been sitting on and spins around to lean facing Harry on crossed arms instead. He nods his head at a sink in the corner of the room. "You gotta scrub it off, you get me?"

Harry isn't quite sure how to respond to the statement. He wants to ask, _Why does someone as young as you have knowledge about removing blood stains?_   or _What circumstances brought you to do laundry at 3am in the middle of nowhere?_   Instead, he settles on a simple, "Thank you." He tries not to notice the boy's current lack of clothing, or the way he reaches up to push his fingers through blond hair.

Harry finishes unbuttoning his dress shirt and tugs it off his arms. He spends a moment debating whether or not to remove his undershirt too - it would be indecent, but then again the boy is down to only his pants - before pulling it over his head. Harry thanks whatever higher powers are watching over him that his trousers don't seem to have any blood on them, despite being quite dirty, and that he'll be able to keep them on marginally longer than the rest of his clothes.

He can feel the boy's eyes on him as he heads over to the sink. A glance over his shoulder confirms that yes, the boy is still watching him. Harry turns his back on him, but still keeps one eye on the mirror above the sink even if he is fairly certain the boy poses no threat.

Harry's hand is hovering over the knob on the sink when the boy speaks up again. "Cold water works best."

Harry nods, turning on the sink, and a steady stream of water splashes into the plastic basin. Harry sticks a finger under the water first, then a patch of his shirt. He begins to rub at the stain vigorously, willing the brown blotch to give way to the stark white it had once been.

"How'd a bloke like you end up all messed up like that?" asks the boy. "Have a run-in with one of them street gangs? Or were you havin' a little bit of fun down on Smith Street?"

Harry doesn't even know where Smith Street is, but another glance in the mirror gives him an idea of what kind of "fun" the boy was insinuating that Harry had been having. He decides to counter the questions with one of his own. "How does a young man such as yourself end up in a laundromat at this time of the evening?" Harry glances at his watch. "Morning, rather," he adds.

The boy gives a full, cocky smile and extends his arms to gesture at the machines on the wall behind him. "To do laundry."

"Of course," says Harry, with a small smile of his own. "How silly of me." Harry succeeds in removing the first spot and moves to the next, letting out a small huff at the stubbornness of the stains. He finds himself glad for whoever cleans the Kingsman suits regularly, because if he had to do this after every mission, he'd probably find himself going mad.

Harry is lost in thought when he registers the presence next to him. "Want some help?"

The boy doesn't give Harry much of a choice when he takes Harry's undershirt from where it's draped over the edge of the sink, wets it, and begins scrubbing as well. Harry tries to focus on the now-subtle tint of blood left in his shirt, or the way the water has begun to turn his fingers numb from the freezing temperature, but his gaze is continually drawn to the boy at his side. He watches him out of the corner of his eye, noting that the boy is more accurately a young man, probably mid-twenties, and extremely attractive, as his brain ever-so-helpfully supplies.

Harry snaps his focus back to the stains again. The young man shifts the shirt in his hands, working on a new section of fabric, and Harry's eyes wander up the strained muscles in his forearms as he works the fabric back and forth. He's distantly aware that he's staring, and that his own hands have stopped working.

The young man must have noticed Harry's staring by now, although if he has, he hasn't said much of anything. He has, however, started biting his lip - in concentration or in subtle display, Harry can't quite tell.

"Done," proclaims the young man, tossing the shirt over the rim of the sink with a wet smack. 

Harry startles out of his trance and sets to work on finishing the last of the stains out of his dress shirt, mildly ashamed that the other had started after and finished before him. He's almost got the last one out when the young man speaks again.

"You ain't a tailor or a lawyer," says the young man. Harry raises an eyebrow and he adds, "Blood kind of gives it away."

Harry makes a noncommittal noise.

"So what are you?"

Harry finds himself trapped by the question. He can't tell his usual lie, and his brain is too far gone to provide any decent fib, so he finds himself telling the truth. "Sorry, it's classified."

"One of those, then." The young man leans over the sink as Harry tries not to get distracted by the strong chest muscles that are pushed into his line of sight. "Where were you posted? Iraq? Afghanistan?"

Harry thinks back to his last visit to Afghanistan, the one that had ended with the death of Lee Unwin. "Classified," he repeats firmly. He gathers up his shirt and undershirt and heads over to the nearest machine, dropping in his two shirts before unbuckling his belt, pulling down his trousers, and adding them in as well. Harry feels absolutely ridiculous standing in only a pair of socks and his pants, so he busies himself with adding detergent and starting the machine. 

"Woah," says the young man, after Harry has moved away from the washing machine.

Harry gazes downward at his body, wondering if there's maybe a stray shard of glass still sticking out somewhere or perhaps some other horrific wound he's failed to miss. He's met with the sight a series of scrapes and bruises, nothing more extreme than the oversized black-and-blue marks the young man has spanning his own body.

"You're really packing."

Harry's eye's widen, thinking he's left an extra gun somewhere - where, he doesn't know, seeing as he is practically naked at this point and his brain isn't working right presently - but then he notices the younger man's eyes, which are trained... straight on his crotch. Harry shifts so that his front is facing the washing machine instead of the young man. The young man has started walking towards Harry, taking slow, calculated steps.

"Perhaps it isn't proper to-"

"To what?" asks the young man, raising an eyebrow, his eyes dark as he draws his bottom lip in with his teeth once again.

He's only a few steps away now, and Harry has to turn his head at an uncomfortable angle to keep the young man in his line of sight. "You don't even know my name," Harry tries, knowing that if the man gets any closer, he's going to lose any semblance of control.

"Then we better start on the introductions," murmurs the young man. He's behind Harry now, chest close to Harry's back, but not quite touching, and Harry swears he can feel the heat radiating off the other man's body. "Eggsy."

"Eggsy?" Harry repeats. He swears the name sounds familiar, but he can't quite place it, not when all of his blood has drained down south.

"That's my name," says Eggsy, giving a small huff of a laugh. "Can't be yours, too."

Eggsy must have deemed Harry quiet for far too long, because he presses his chest against Harry's shoulder blades, forcing Harry's legs to press against the cool metallic surface of the washing machine. He braces his arms on the edge of it, supporting them both at the awkward angle Eggsy has forced their bodies into, and says, "Harry."

"Nice name. Bet it's nice to say while you do whatever dirty things you were thinking about over at that sink." Eggsy leans in closer, his cheek pressed against Harry's hair as he whispers in his ear, "So what do you say, Harry? Want to have some fun?"

Harry thinks his heart is about to beat right out of his chest at this point. He deliberates with himself for a moment - he can't deny his attraction to Eggsy, who seems just as taken as Harry knows himself to be, but they're in a laundromat of all places, and Harry was most certainly not expecting his night to end this way. Plus, Eggsy is a stranger, and a younger stranger at that. Then again, he had been the one to instigate the entire predicament in which Harry finds himself in at the current moment.

He takes a deep breath and gives a shaky nod.

Eggsy wastes no time and pushes the full line of his body against Harry, his mouth immediately setting to work at the junction of Harry's neck and shoulder. Harry finds that he doesn't care if Eggsy leaves a mark that will be visible tomorrow, as long as he doesn't stop nipping and biting at that one spot, the spot that has Harry letting out a shameless moan. Eggsy hums and mouths wet kisses up Harry's neck to bite at his jawline, only separating his mouth from skin when Harry pushes him away.

"Wha-" Eggsy begins, but is instantly silenced as Harry uses the space created by Eggsy's confusion to turn himself around and pull Eggsy in for a bruising kiss.

Harry's top lip collides with Eggsy's teeth, still bared from the sentence he had earlier tried to utter. Getting with the program, Eggsy closes his lips around Harry's and lets the older man capture his bottom lip in his own. For a moment, it's a mess of slick lips and fumbling movements. Harry slides his hands down to Eggsy's waist, then back up to his broad shoulders, feeling the muscles move under his hands. Eggsy brings a hand up to run through Harry's hair and Harry lets him, wants him to mess it up from the neat part it's been in since earlier that morning.

The fabric of Eggsy's boxers bunches together as he rubs his hips against Harry's, and Harry can feel the hard line of his cock against the growing stiffness in his own. He tightens his hold on Eggsy's shoulder, fingers pressing into the muscle hard enough to bruise the pale flesh even more than it already is. Harry distantly wonders if this is how Eggsy got all of his bruises, from other men or maybe even women. He growls at the thought of someone else touching the young man.

Eggsy must take the growl as a sign of neediness, because he kisses Harry even more fiercely, working his tongue between Harry's parted lips. Eggsy's tongue works against his own, exploring Harry's mouth with quick slides and long strokes. He's pulling away again far too soon, but when the vision of Eggsy's slick red lips and lidded eyes comes into view, Harry can't find it in himself to complain.

He thinks Eggsy is about to say something with the way his eyes flicker up to Harry's, down to his mouth, and back up to meet his eyes again, but Eggsy just dives back in and kisses Harry with renewed vigor. Harry returns the sentiment, sucking on Eggsy's bottom lip as Eggsy lets out a small moan.

The sound is cut short by the irritating drone of a buzzer.

"Sorry," says Eggsy, gasping for breath. "That's my-" He pulls his hand away from Harry's hair to scratch nervously at the back of his neck. "I've got to-" He gestures at the drier. "My laundry," he finishes lamely.

Harry watches as Eggsy pulls his clothes out of the drier and puts them on - jeans and a polo, followed by a rather horrific looking jacket. Some other clothes are stuffed carelessly into a black backpack that he slings over his shoulder and accompanied with a black snapback that hides Eggsy's tousled hair, a sight Harry had been so shamelessly enjoying. Harry is confused by the sudden presence of clothing, about to argue that they should be getting undressed, not adding more clothing to the mix, when Eggsy's voice fills the growing silence.

"Maybe some other time, yeah?" He says the sentence softly but accentuates it with a wink, and walks out of the laundromat, the door chiming in his wake.

Harry continues to stare at the glass door long after Eggsy has left, wishing he had something other than an absurd name to call the boy by. He wracks his brain, wishing he remembered where he's heard it before, but nothing comes to mind. Harry does briefly consider trying to track Eggsy down. Though, even if he did, what would he say? How would he explain it to Eggsy? Would Eggsy even want to see him?

When his laundry is finally finished, Harry gets dressed with a sigh. He knows it would be silly to find someone who had clearly only been looking for some fun while his clothes dried. Harry finds his way back to the hotel in the darkness, half-hoping to run into Eggsy on the street, knowing all the same that it won't happen.

Merlin doesn't comment on his appearance at HQ the next day, even though Harry knows for a fact that Eggsy has left no less than two hickeys above the collar. Harry is expecting some kind of jab, or even a raised eyebrow, but he understands why none have been voiced when Merlin says, "Lancelot is dead." 

 

* * *

 

In the end, he ends up picking a young woman named Roxanne Morton as his candidate for the new Lancelot position. She had been on the Kingsman radar for quite some time, and with her recent return from a research position in Norway, Harry figured he might as well propose her. He hadn't seen any of the candidates yet, as per Kingsman regulation, but Merlin kept him updated with stories of her progress, noting that she was passing the tests with flying colors. 

"Percival's candidate is doing quite well, too," Merlin reports one day, when Harry wakes up to find himself recovering in the Kingsman infirmary after what he was hoping to be a simple chat with Professor Arnold. "It's down to Roxy, Percival's candidate, and Arthur's candidate."

"Who did Percival propose?" asks Harry idly, glancing over the file that Merlin has opened up on his tablet.

Merlin is silent for a moment. "Gary Unwin."

Harry snaps his head up. "Lee Unwin's son?"

"The very same."

Harry doesn't know what to make of that information, so he returns his focus to his work, hoping that Gary doesn't follow his father's footsteps straight to the grave. Lee Unwin had been a good man and an even better recruit, and it would be a shame to lose Gary too, especially if the young man is showing the same potential as his father.

It isn't until a few weeks later that Harry finally meets Roxy's competition for the Lancelot position. Merlin sent the three candidates to a bar - Roxy, Charlie, and Gary - the typical test of loyalty disguised as a honeypot mission. He watches as Roxy passes with flying colors, followed by Charlie, who fails miserably. It's Gary's turn after that, and Harry stands next to Roxy as Gary refuses to sell out Kingsman. The image from the feed is slightly blurred, and Gary's face is small on the screen, but Harry can't help but feel he looks familiar.

Percival appears on screen, congratulating Gary, then untying him. In a few moments the door is opening and Percival is stepping inside, followed by...

"Eggsy."

Eggsy is clearly as surprised to see Harry as Harry is to see him, but he plays it off well with a cheery, "Ello, Harry."

Harry is all too conscious of his coworkers confusion - and Roxy's, although she seems to be giving him and Eggsy most scrutiny of everyone present. He clears his throat and looks to Merlin, who has raised an eyebrow and is giving a subtle smirk. Merlin debriefs Roxy and Gar- Eggsy, then frees them to go, focusing his attention back on Harry as soon as the others begin to leave.

Eggsy whispers in his ear as he passes. "Told you we'd meet again," he says with a wink.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at [eggsyunwinhart](http://eggsyunwinhart.tumblr.com)!


End file.
